Why Should I Adjust? Writes Palak Kundra

People usually ask me why I’m so rebellious in nature as compared to my parents. They’re so calm and typical, lived by the rules set by our society in the ancient times. But, I think if Bhagat Singh would have married as per his parents’ wishes and didn’t do what he did for India, (can’t forget this man ever, I look up to, not gender-biased), he also might have gone unnoticed. It’s not about being recognized; it’s about that “KIDAA” inside me that I’m not a slave to anybody or why I must do what he or she wishes. I believe in “You Only Live Once” or “Leave Your Mark”, kind of philosophy. Why I am bound to live according to the rules of this society where a man has the right to do anything but a woman can’t even rise for her own self.

I asked my mother if she’s so up-to-date, uses facebook, WhatsApp etc, she knows almost everything about shares and all economic matters, why didn’t she try to get her name separately recognized. The answer was—“We live in a society and mustn’t be rebellious or we’ll be left alone and remember, you’re a woman!”

“Really, MOM? WHAT?” my expressions after that!

WOMAN—a word without which no man on this earth can survive. I mean I never met a person yet who was born of his father’s womb!

A Woman lives and dies for these tags only—MAINLY— mother, sister, daughter, girlfriend and wife.

She still doesn’t have the right to even tell what she’s thinking when our government has passed “right to privacy”, for every Indian. And if she does, she’s been tagged as egotistic, selfish, arrogant, characterless, and what not…as soon as she tries to do something for her identity.

I’ve heard these lines many times, and that too from other women,

“Auraten ghar sambhaalte hue achchi lagti hain aur mard bahar ja kar kaam karte hue”, means that every woman is born to be house-slave and man as the Earner.

Then, where the hell is the “Right To Freedom Of Work”, for women. And if they can’t enjoy even this basic right, then “Right To Privacy ka Achchaar dalen—teekha ya meetha?”

A man has the right to do everything, but as far as our society is concerned, women can’t even spend their parents’ or husbands’ money as they are willing to. She doesn’t have anything to her name, as the owner, she’s only the first nominee. That means, she’s to wait for someone’s death to get everything under her possession, even her BASIC RIGHTS.

I mean, not every woman is extravagant or the one who doesn’t save under-cover, but there’re some poor pitied women whose husband beat them just because they’d bought a few costly sanitary napkins.

I know that kind of woman, whose husband goes to Thailand twice a year, has uncountable affairs inside/outside India. And she isn’t allowed to spend money on herself or her kids’ household needs. He beats her up, now and then, and she can’t do anything because she has nowhere to go. Her parents are bound to social rules.

I told to file a complaint against her husband and the answer was—

A woman who lives as a mother, wife and supporter in a man’s life and what she gets, at last, to behold her own small needs to give others a beautiful future. And nobody comes up to help a common housewife who is being a victim of name-calling, verbal and physical abuse and all sort of domestic violence, even after so much economic and technical growth of our country.

Everybody just consoles by saying, “Adjust Karo!”

But I don’t and I won’t! Because I Ask “WHY?”.

“Adjustments are the main cause of all crimes against women. Don’t Adjust. Ask! It’s Your Birth-Right!”